Wednesday, April 08, 2015

Beijing to ban vehicles that fail to meet emission standards

Beijing will ban gasoline-powered vehicles that fail to meet the
National Emission Standard II from the road starting Jan. 1 of next year
to cut pollution, the local environmental authority said.The
vehicles will be banned from entering the city's Sixth Ring Road,
according to the municipal environmental protection bureau, which held a
pollution prevention and control conference on Tuesday.

Beijing
currently imposes the National Emission Standard V for vehicles, similar
to the Euro V standard in Europe. The city imposed the National
Emission Standard I in 1999 and the National Emission Standard II in
2004. With each new standard, actual pollutant amounts dropped by 30 to
50 percent per vehicle.

Beijing plans to introduce policies to
improve the cost and reduce the use of vehicles. It will also research
congestion charges to cut pollution, according to the conference.

Beijing
has eliminated "Huangbiaoche," or "yellow-label cars," which failed to
meet the National Emission Standard I by the end of 2014, according to
the conference.

Beijing scrapped 1.44 million old vehicles
between 2011 and 2014. More than 90 percent of those vehicle owners
bought new vehicles, contributing 8.1 billion yuan (1.3 billion US
dollars) in taxes to the municipal government, according to the bureau.

Beijing
currently has 5.57 million vehicles, which discharge 700,000 tons of
pollutants annually. Vehicle discharge is the top cause of pollution in
the city, accounting for 31 percent of the total. Source:Xinhua globaltimes.cn8/4/15---Related:

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